Mayor Chris Coleman spoke at the St. Paul Farmers Market where he launched a new initiative that uses bonding, state and federal funding and private partnerships to move forward with 15 economic development projects around Saint Paul. The development plan will leverage $100 million in private investment and create 3,000 new jobs, he said Wednesday August 18, 2010. (Chris Polydoroff)

In this image provided by the Minnesota Timberwolves NBA basketball team, the team's home, Target Center, is pictured how it would look after a proposed renovation. The Timberwolves and the city of Minneapolis are teaming up on a proposal that seeks $155 million to renovate, calling for a complete remodel of the 21-year-old building including shifting the main entrance. (AP Photo/Minnesota Timberwolves)

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman threw himself headlong into the Minnesota Vikings stadium debate and took aim at neighboring Minneapolis on Tuesday, meeting with Gov. Mark Dayton in private and speaking before business leaders in public about a related “threat on the horizon.”

Coleman told a St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon that one aspect of a proposed stadium package – $150 million in public funding to spruce up the Target Center in Minneapolis – would be a “very huge threat” to downtown St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center, home to the Wild, the state’s NHL team.

“We need to make sure that we fight for equality in this region,” Coleman said.

The Target Center portion is a key part of Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak’s proposal to keep the Vikings in town. That financing strategy would redirect taxes that now support the Minneapolis Convention Center toward a football stadium and the Target Center, which is home to the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves and WNBA’s Lynx.

Despite his public comments on the issue, Coleman said he did not think it would strain his cordial working relationship with Rybak. Yet the public disagreement between the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul is a rarity, and one that appears to be intensifying.

In response to Coleman’s remarks, Rybak issued a statement making reference to Coleman’s No. 1 priority before lawmakers, a new ballpark for the St. Paul Saints.

“I don’t think building a new baseball stadium in St. Paul hurts Minneapolis, and I don’t think renovating an existing facility in Minneapolis hurts St. Paul,” Rybak wrote.

“We should fix both Target Center and the Xcel Center, so that 10 years from now, we’re not having another debate about what to do about the homes of the Timberwolves, Lynx and Wild.”

Coleman and other St. Paul City Hall officials have said neither Target Center nor Xcel Energy Center is overflowing with cash, and they compete head-to-head for national concert acts, effectively undercutting each other’s booking rates.

Giving a renovated Target Center a competitive advantage would make it even more difficult for the Xcel to pay its debts and attract shows, they have said.

“While (the governor) made no promises today, it is very clear that he gets why we’re concerned about this and has pledged his support to work with us to try to come up with a solution,” Coleman said after he and city council President Kathy Lantry met with Dayton at the Capitol.

In a statement, Pellegrom said he supported public funding for stadiums, as long as it was fair, or else “the state is in essence picking winners and losers.”

Lantry said she was confident the Wild would be able to keep up with their lease payments for the Xcel, and the city would continue to cover its debts on the adjoining RiverCentre convention site.

She was more concerned about losing restaurant-goers and other visitors to Minneapolis.

John Stiles, a Rybak spokesman, said the Target Center proposal has been mischaracterized as a subsidy or debt forgiveness. Instead, Minneapolis would redirect about $50 million in existing sales taxes to pay off the center’s construction debt, and then use an additional $150 million – about a third of it from private sources – to renovate the arena.

“We are not asking for a subsidy. We are not asking for a bailout,” Stiles said. “We are asking to pay the debt with a different set of already existing resources that we collect.”

The arena’s woes are outlined on a city website, TargetCenterRenovation.org, which says the 22-year-old facility is outdated and “no longer economically viable.”

According to the website, the arena lacks a permanent loading dock, and sometimes more than 20 trucks must circle downtown waiting for a turn to unload concert gear. No elevator services every level of the building, it says, and seating and scoreboards are showing their age.

Coleman has his own downtown to worry about and called the Xcel an important “anchor” for downtown St. Paul and West Seventh Street.

He said said the Twin Cities must function more as a region and compete against other markets, instead of pitting Minneapolis against St. Paul.

“Regionalism does not mean the west metro gets everything, and St. Paul and the east metro gets scraps,” Coleman said. “We’ve got to stand up and we’ve got to fight.”

The mayor said he will continue to ask lawmakers to forgive a $65 million state loan issued toward construction of the Xcel – $34 million of the debt remains outstanding.

Coleman’s concerns resonated with some at the luncheon.

Patrick Seeb, CEO of the St. Paul Riverfront Corporation, said the Target Center proposal is the first true test of a budding friendship between two cities historically more accustomed to rivalry than regionalism.

Rybak and Coleman have both supported a marketing and business recruitment effort called Greater MSP, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Regional Economic Development Partnership; and both cities will be linked in 2014 through the 11-mile Central Corridor Light Rail Transit line

“It’s low-hanging fruit for the mayors to work together on something like MSP or Central Corridor, but the real test is tackling something as complicated and potentially detrimental as (uneven funding for) the two arenas,” Seeb said.

A growing chorus of officials in St. Paul and Ramsey County hopes to see some form of regional sports and entertainment authority manage the Target Center and the Xcel, parsing out shows to each venue. That would allow both venues to pay off bond debts and book shows without entering into bidding wars.

Rybak’s proposal would rework the Metrodome site for a new Vikings home. His plan would provide about $313 million. With funding from the team and the state to be determined, officials estimate the project would cost $918 million.

Some Minneapolis City Council members have taken a dim view of the plan; many have called for a public vote.

The city charter bars spending more than $10 million in city funds for professional sports stadiums, though stadium proponents note the convention center taxes to be used were created by the Legislature and may not need City Council’s approval to be extended past a sunset date.

Frederick Melo came to the Pioneer Press in 2005 and brings an aggressive East Coast attitude to St. Paul beat reporting. He spent nearly six years covering crime in the Dakota County courts before switching focus to the St. Paul mayor's office, city council, and all things neighborhood-related, from the city's churches to its parks and light rail. A resident of Hamline-Midway, he is married to a Frogtown woman. He Tweets manically at @FrederickMelo

As you comment, please be respectful of other commenters and other viewpoints. Our goal with article comments is to provide a space for civil, informative and constructive conversations. We reserve the right to remove any comment we deem to be defamatory, rude, insulting to others, hateful, off-topic or reckless to the community. See our full terms of use here.

More in News

DULUTH, Minn. — A Roanoke, Va., multimillionaire who made his fortune in health care and has recently purchased coal mines wants to buy the bankrupt Magnetation LLC operations on Minnesota’s Iron Range and put laid-off employees back to work. That’s the plan of Tom Clarke, owner of ERP Compliant Fuels and now ERP Iron Ore, who has brokered a deal...

Renaldo Terez McDaniel was looking under the hood of his car outside a St. Paul auto-parts store on a summer evening last June when three shots were fired. One hit the 31-year-old McDaniel in the shoulder, another pierced his stomach. The third struck his head.

Delta Air Lines is rolling out new free snacks for customers in the main cabin, including brand-name yogurt bars and pretzels. Some will come in larger portions than before because, Delta has figured out, that’s what customers crave.

MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin System officials Thursday approved raising tuition for out-of-state, graduate and professional school students by hundreds of dollars at more than a half-dozen campuses as they grapple with a Republican-imposed freeze on in-state undergraduate tuition. The plan calls for increases at UW-Eau Clare, UW-Green Bay, UW-La Crosse, UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee, UW-Stout and all the system’s two-year...

Minnesota’s attorney general sued Volkswagen on Thursday, saying the German automaker violated state laws when it sold diesel vehicles in the state with special systems designed to defeat U.S. emissions tests.

In the midst of his Cabinet deliberations, President-elect Donald Trump flew to Ohio on Thursday to meet with victims and families after the latest U.S. outbreak of violence, a somber duty that became all too familiar to his predecessor.